Nobody Needs This Truck

by Michael Satterfield – 04/06/2021

While the rest of the world is announcing their new electric pickup trucks and hybrid powertrains, Ram has gone a different direction, building a pick-up that no one really needs, the TRX. Since 2010, Ford has been the undisputed king of the Baja-inspired off-road truck with the Ford Raptor, the first-generation Raptor offered 411 hp and a trophy truck look. The second-generation Raptor came with a 450 hp twin-turbo V6, which many enthusiasts found disappointing, Ram’s answer was to pull a page from their sibling brand Dodge and stuff a supercharged 702 hp Hellcat engine into the Ram1500. Add off-road with Bilstein Black Hawk adaptive shocks, 35 inch Goodyear Wrangler tires, some extra wide bodywork to cover it all up, and you have the TRX.

What you end up with is a luxurious off-road truck that can scream from 0-60 in just 4.5 seconds, has a top speed of 118 mph, can climb over nearly anything, and it can still town 8,100 lbs while seating five adults. But it is more than just a hot rod with a big engine shoehorned in and a lift kit, the TRX gets a radically different frame, relocated axels, and a completely revised suspension. It is perhaps one of the most impractical vehicles ever built that you can legally hang a license plate on, so I took the TRX my friend’s 10,000-acre ranch in far West Texas to it through its paces in a more proper environment than the HEB parking lot.

West Texas is about as close to Baja as you are going to get in the states, and the TRX was built for the desert, just know, you will have some breathless moments when passing through a cattle guard with these massive fenders. The truck is so wide, that on my way to the ranch I stopped at a local bank and it wouldn’t fit through their drive-thru ATM, something to keep in mind if you were considering a TRX for your daily driver.

Getting on some sandy roads at the ranch, I switch over to Baja Mode which reduces shift times, adjusts the suspension and steering, and makes you into an off-road hero. The TRX is wildly fun on wide-open sandy dirt roads. Besides Baja Mode, the TRX offers Rock Mode, Mud/Sand Mode, Snow Mode, Sport Mode, and Custom Mode which allows you to set your preferred steering feel, torque split, and suspension settings. The TRX is shockingly composed for a vehicle of this size on a loose surface, having driven Baja Challenge cars I can say this truck makes driving off-road easy.

That said all this tech, power, and exclusivity come at a cost, with a base price of $71,790, if you start ticking off all the options a fully loaded Ram TRX can have an MSRP of $99,405. That is a lot of money for a truck, but like other limited edition trucks, the TRX is more than a pickup, it is a status symbol. If you wanted a daily driver that looked cool and offered most of the same function as a TRX, the Ram Rebel starts at just $44,965. But the TRX is like driving a supercar and it attracts as much attention. When driving around town people will wave, wait for you in parking lots, and form a crowd when you are at the gas station, if you want to be seen, the TRX is perfect for you.

The TRX is one of those wonderful vehicles that is built despite there not being a need for it, it is a vehicle you have to want. The buyer of a TRX has to be willing to sacrifice fuel economy, anonymity, and practicality, just like buyers of supercars. It is a toy, an expensive toy, but as we have seen with other limited edition vehicles, there seems to be a never-ending line of people lined up to buy them and the TRX will be no different. The TRX has sparked a bit of a horsepower war, Ford responding with a 760 hp Raptor R for 2022 ushering in a new era of Supertrucks.